Cody Rhodes Cleared for Backlash Despite Injury Speculations on SmackDown

Last week on WWE SmackDown, fans expressed concern for Cody Rhodes, the Undisputed WWE Champion, after he appeared to injure his shoulder during a non-title match against former NXT Champ Carmelo Hayes. Rhodes executed a cutter spot with Hayes, sparking speculation of a potential shoulder injury.

Despite the concerns, Rhodes is scheduled to defend his title against AJ Styles at Backlash France this Saturday. According to discussions on Wrestling Observer Radio with Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez, there is no official report of Rhodes being injured. Alvarez noted, "Yesterday in the show, we were talking about the SmackDown spot where Cody and Carmelo did double dives. Both missed each other, crashed, and burned. Cody was grabbing his shoulder, and Cody was not listed as injured."

Meltzer clarified that Rhodes's condition isn't part of a storyline nor is it recognized as a genuine injury within WWE circles. "He’s not listed as injured, they never mentioned it on TV so it’s not a worked injury either. It’s not like some storyline because it was never mentioned," Meltzer stated.

Furthermore, Meltzer suggested that if it were a storyline injury, it would have been mentioned in relation to the upcoming pay-per-view event. "I would think that if there's is the main event on the pay-per-view. I would think that if they were doing a storyline and mentioned it when they showed they showed all kinds of clips from SmackDown, they never addressed it. So I would say that if it was going to be addressed as a storyline, it would have been addressed as far as the Pay Per View main event. It had been addressed tonight. So I don't think it's being addressed. The injury. I was told it is not listed as an injury, a real injury, so whatever it was. It might be just something. It might be something minor, it might be nothing at all, it's probably nothing at all significant," he added.

⚡ WWE Raw - 2024 WWE Draft Night Two (4/29/2024)

Featured below are complete WWE Monday Night Raw results from Monday, April 29, 2024. The following report was written by Rajah.com reporter [...]

— Patrick A Ganczewski Apr 29, 2024 11:13PM